SDGs

Localisation of SDGs in Indonesia

Free school bus service administered by local government of Gorontalo, Indonesia.

LOCAL Government is a key player to achieve the Agenda 2030 including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is the part of UCLG ASPAC’s ongoing advocacy to ensure an enabling environment for SDGs, emphasising the importance of localising SDGs as a process of empowering Local Governments.

UCLG ASPAC, in close collaboration with Association of Indonesian Municipalities (APEKSI) and supported by European Union, undertakes its role as part of Global Taskforce through the creation of a SDGs localising program in Indonesia.

LOCALISE - Leadership, Ownership, Capacity for Agenda 2030 Local Implementation and Stakeholders Empowerment builds its foundation on Indonesian

Presidential Decree No. 59 of 2018 concerning SDGs Implementation as the national legal umbrella. It aims at supporting Local Governments (LGs) and their Associations (LGAs) to plan, implement and monitor SDGs at local level. LOCALISE will empower LGs and LGAs for enhanced governance and more effective development policies as well as to promote inclusive and sustainable local development through SDGs attainment. The programme’s specific objectives include 1) Strengthening the capacity of LGs to enable them perform their legal and institutional mandates to tackle poverty through the application of SDGs indicators in their policies and planning; 2) Enhancing the institutional and operational capacities of LGAs to enable them perform their main functions such as advocacy, lobbying, coordination, technical services, capacity building and knowledge sharing in raising awareness of the SDGs among their members.

Tailor Made to Meet Local Governments’ Need LOCALISE programme is specifically designed to address four challenges identified from series of discussions since 2016.

The first and main challenge is the fact that awareness among LGs and LGAs on the importance of SDGs is considerable low. A need assessment on LGs and LGAs conducted by UCLG ASPAC in 2016 reveals that LGs and LGAs possess basic knowledge on SDGs and cannot relate how SDGs impact their everyday lives. UCLG ASPAC sees the need to reach out directly to LGs in Indonesia and get them engaged by explaining with their own realities what SDGs entail for them.

Secondly, there is limitation in enabling environment and multi level dialogues for SDGs implementation. Through LGAs, LGs shall be facilitated to learn how to vis-avis national authorities to ensure that the interests and needs of their citizens are included in the national strategy for SDGs’ implementation and monitoring. The localisation process accurately offers the opportunity to open or revive channels of dialogues between local and national governments to ensure effective deliveries of services to the citizens.

Thirdly, the capacity of LGs and LGAs towards SDGs’ implementation and reporting also needs much improvement. Elected and appointed officials of LG should be able to align their policies, plans, programs and projects with SDGs. Therefore, they need to be able to set the priorities and align the plans. This requires capacity to develop integrated planning, define costs and finance strategies as well as monitoring, evaluation and reporting system.

Fourthly, Local Governments are not able to optimally capture opportunities built upon international cooperation. Indonesia has 542 Local Governments (provincial, regencies, and municipalities). Most of them are not able to optimally capture the global opportunities, related to trades, investments, economy, tourism, agriculture,

education, environment to boost local economic development, increase revenue collections as well as to gain other benefits brought by international cooperation. In other words, the SDG #17 calls for governments and stakeholders to revitalise the global partnerships for sustainable development to maximise its impacts.

Addressing these challenges, LOCALISE programme designs series of capacity building activities at local and national level. It also includes the establishment of a SDGs shared platform for local administration. The platform will serve as means of fruitful discussion, knowledge sharing, and capacity development for the mastery of City Diplomacy, expanded Networking and Localising SDGs. The LOCALISE programme is expected to be introduced to public in the beginning of July 2018.

Photo: Documentation of APEKSI Secretariat